Rick Santorum to return to campaign trail Tuesday — joined by wife Karen in higher profile role

Rick Santorum appears to have a plan for moving ahead. It involves his wife.

To squelch murmurs and questions about whether he might be dropping out of the Republican Party presidential contest, Santorum released information Saturday on some of his campaign events planned for this coming week.

He announced he will campaign in Pennsylvania, where he served 12 years as a U.S. Senator, and in Missouri. Pennsylvania holds its GOP primary on April 24 — UW Election Eye will be on the ground in the Keystone State for the 10 days leading up to the primary — and Missouri is still deciding upon candidate delegates, building on its March caucuses.

Notably, on Tuesday, Santorum will do an event with renown evangelical leader James Dobson, longtime leader of Focus on the Family. The two will appear at Lancaster Bible College. They will be joined by the candidate’s wife, Karen Santorum, in what is being billed as an “American Heartland Conversation on Faith, Family, and American Values.”

Karen Santorum has been on the campaign trail a fair amount, but she has not appeared in high-profile positions. That appears to be about to change. She will also join her husband on the agenda at a Pennsylvania event the following night, and then she will speak at the Women’s Leadership Luncheon at the National Rifle Assocation Convention in St. Louis. She will join Ann Romney and Callista Gingrich there.